my mind

for the first time in awhile i feel i had a good productive weekend for my mind. sure, cleaning house/doing laundry/taking care of the birds/taking care of caitlin are also productive things that i do on a daily basis but i dont usually challenge my mind in those tasks. but on saturday my boss asked me to come in to work (the insurance job) for the whole day to help out. and i actually enjoyed it. i quoted and issued policies like i used to do, searched for files, helped clients, all the components of my job that i had not done for several months. it was refreshing to be productive like that. i love being home with caitlin, dont get me wrong. i wouldnt want to change that. but every now and then its good to do something else.

tonight i helped chris grade papers for his classes he teaches. that too was a mind challenge which i enjoyed. i tried to answer some of the questions myself to see how much physics i knew (i never took it in school) and i liked having to figure that out.

the closest i get to using my mind around the house is deciding what to make for meals. since we are on a very limited budget i try to get creative with what we have on hand. last week we were in the mood for soup, but had no prepared soup in the pantry. so i dissolved chicken boullion cubes, made some rice, and cooked some chicken tenders and whola homemade chicken and rice soup. i have also realized how much cheaper it is to make cakes and cookies from scratch (last week was chocolate cake, this week is pumpkin bars). i dont think i'll buy a boxed cake mix again now that i know how easy it is to make it from scratch!

the next big mind challenge is christmas gifts. i'm trying to come up with ideas for stuff i can make myself because we dont have much money to spend on gifts this year. but i want to make something practical. the problem is i'm so uncreative in this department. i've been trying to find ideas online, but i get overwhelmed easily. so if anyone has good ideas, feel free to share!